My wife invited her ex for dinner, humiliated me, and compared me in front of him, but I disappeared.
I (35M) am filing for divorce from my wife, Tessa (28F), after she invited her ex over for dinner, humiliated me in front of him, and now everyone’s saying I’m wrong for wanting out.
Tessa and I have been married for 5 years and have a four-year-old son together. We met in grad school when I was finishing my master’s and she was an undergrad.
After getting married, I initially quit my job but had to rejoin the workforce when our son was 6 months old because Tessa’s income alone wasn’t enough for the three of us.
That decision led to a lot of arguments because Tessa felt it was somehow an insult to her and showed I had no faith in her abilities.
I spent weeks trying to convince her that this had nothing to do with her capabilities; I just believed two incomes would be better than one.
She was upset with me for quite a while, but eventually came around when she realized it meant she could take some time off work to spend with our son.
The downside was that I ended up doing both my job and all the housework.
Tessa is a personal trainer at a local gym, so she claims her job is more physically demanding than mine. I have a desk job, so she thinks I should handle most of the household chores according to her.
Since I don’t do much physical activity at work, household tasks shouldn’t be too tiring for me—despite the fact that I work longer hours.
When I first started working, we agreed she’d help with at least some chores, but I’d always come home to a half-done job, and her excuse was always that she was too exhausted.
We’d fight about it constantly until I eventually gave up trying to make her do her part.
I started doing everything myself just to avoid the regular arguments.
The stress got to me so badly that I started smoking.
Tessa mocked me for this too, saying I was just trying to show off how stressed I was.
I spent the last couple of years living like this while also putting up with Tessa’s relentless comments about my sloppy cooking, which was partly her fault since she never helped with meal prep and I had to rush everything between work and other chores.
I stayed purely for our son’s sake, knowing that leaving would impact his life.
Last year, I finally broke down and hired a maid, paying her salary from my own pocket.
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